Circuit and System Design, Analysis and Simulation

Qorvo

RF Designers often require several parameter details when placing several amplifiers in a chain. This Qorvo Cascade Calculator provides performance values for system level gain, noise figure (NF) and P1dB for up to 3 cascaded power amplifiers in a chain. NF is the measure of an amplifier's contribution to the overall noise in the system. It is the ratio of the signal-to-noise ratio at the input of the amplifier to the signal-to-noise ratio at the output of the amplifier. P1dB or output power at 1 dB compression point, is the output power level at which the actual gain deviates from the small signal gain by 1 dB.

Noise figure and noise temperature are used interchangeably. NF measures degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which is caused due to RF and electronic components used in the transmit or receive chain. The noise figure number is displayed in decibels (dB), and represents the performance by which an amplifier or RF receiver can be measured. Noise temperature is the noise power of a component that is introduced into a system. The noise temperature is directly proportional to the temperature in degrees Kelvin.

ADIsimRF™

Analog Devices

ADIsimRF is an easy-to-use RF signal chain calculator. Cascaded gain, noise, distortion and power consumption can be calculated, plotted and exported for signal chains with up to 50 stages. ADIsimRF also includes an extensive database of device models for ADI’s RF and mixed signal components

CST STUDIO SUITE

CST

CST STUDIO SUITE® combines fullwave 3D EM simulation, PCB simulation and circuit simulation in one software interface. The CST System Assembly and Modeling (SAM) approach allows designers to link multiple simulation projects to together for a full system simulation. Hybrid simulation, multiphysics solvers and true transient EM/circuit co-simulation allow multiple solver types to be combined in a single simulation to increase the speed, accuracy and versatility of system simulation.

Cascade Analysis Calculator

Custom MMIC

Cascade Analysis Calculator let's you go easily from datasheet to analysis. Designed to analyze up to 10 stages, this calculator offers a simple yet powerful way to analyze multi-component systems for their cascaded gain, noise figure, compression point and linearity. Various online cascade analysis calculators have one built-in problem: all stages must be specified with either input or output power parameters. Unfortunately, component datasheets are hardly universal in this regard—most active components such as amplifiers are specified in terms of output power and output IP3, but passive components such as mixers and attenuators are often specified by their input values.

This variation in specifications used to mean that a microwave system designer had to convert between input and output specifications (or vice-versa) in order to use a cascade analysis tool. While this conversion is simple for most parameters, converting output P1 dB to its input equivalent often leads to the following question: "Do I add '1' or subtract '1' to the gain to determine the input P1 dB?" This calculator lets one choose between input or output specifications for each component in a line-up—and go straight from datasheet to analysis without any questions.

Noise Figure-Noise Temperature Calculator

Pasternack

Electronics Desktop

ANSYS

ANSYS Electronics Desktop is a unified platform for electromagnetic, circuit and system simulation. Tools like ANSYS HFSS, Maxwell, Q3D Extractor and Simplorer are built natively in the Electronics Desktop, which serves as a universal Pre/Post processor for these tools.

License Required

SIwave

ANSYS

ANSYS SIwave is a specialized design platform for power integrity, signal integrity and EMI analysis of IC packages and PCBs. SIwave helps model, simulate and validate high-speed channels and complete power delivery systems typical in modern high performance electronics.

License Required

Advanced Design System (ADS)

Keysight Technologies

Advanced Design System is electronic design automation software for RF, microwave, and high speed digital applications. ADS provides full, standards-based design and verification with wireless libraries and circuit-system-EM co-simulation in an integrated platform.

GoldenGate RFIC Simulation Software

Keysight Technologies

GoldenGate RFIC Simulation and Analysis Software is a simulation and analysis solution for integrated mixed signal RFIC designs that is fully integrated into the Cadence Analog Design Environment (ADE). GoldenGate is part of Keysight's RFIC simulation, analysis and verification solution that also includes Momentum for 3D planar electromagnetic simulation, SystemVue & Ptolemy wireless test benches for system-level verification, and the Advanced Design System (ADS) Data Display for data analysis.

Free Trial Available

PIPro Power Integrity EM Analysis Element

Keysight Technologies

PIPro provides power integrity analysis for power distribution, including DC IR drop analysis, AC impedance analysis and power plane resonance analysis. PIPro utilizes a common setup and analysis environment within Advanced Design System (ADS).

SIPro Signal Integrity EM Analysis Element

Keysight Technologies

SIPro provides signal integrity (SI) analysis of high-speed PCBs, enabling the characterization of loss and coupling of signal nets, and the ultimate extraction of an EM-accurate model that can be used in ADS Transient and Channel Simulators.

MATLAB and Simulink

Mathworks

Design, analysis and simulation software. RF related tools include:

Communications System Toolbox™ provides algorithms and apps for the analysis, design, end-to-end simulation and verification of communications systems in MATLAB® and Simulink®. Toolbox algorithms, including channel coding, modulation, MIMO and OFDM, enable the composition of a system physical layer model to measure performance.

RF Toolbox™ provides functions, objects and apps for designing, modeling, analyzing, and visualizing networks of radio frequency (RF) components. It can be used for wireless communications, radar and signal integrity projects.

RF Blockset™ (formerly SimRF™) provides a Simulink® component library and simulation engine for designing RF systems. It includes amplifiers, mixers, S-parameter blocks and other blocks for designing architectures for wireless transmitters and receivers in communications and radar systems.

Antenna Toolbox™ provides functions and apps for the design, analysis and visualization of antenna elements and arrays.

Analog Office RFIC/Analog IC Design

NI/AWR

Analog Office along with Visual System Simulator™, AXIEM and Analyst™ software tools form the NI AWR Design Environment platform to capture, synthesize, simulate, optimize, lay out, extract and verify RFIC and analog designs from the system level through to final tape-out.

Free Trial

Microwave Office RF/Microwave Circuit Design

NI/AWR

Microwave Office along with Visual System Simulator™, AXIEM and Analyst™ software tools form the NI AWR Design Environment platform for a complete RF and microwave circuit, system and EM co-simulation environment.

Free Trial

Visual System Simulator Wireless Communications/Radar Systems Design

NI/AWR

Visual System Simulator™ (VSS) software is the system-level simulation technology that is part of the NI AWR Design Environment platform. VSS is an RF and wireless communications and radar systems design solution, supporting measurements of cascaded RF blocks, identifying the source of spurious products and simulating system metrics such as bit error rates all from a single system diagram.

Free Trial

LabVIEW

National Instruments

LabVIEW is systems engineering software for applications that require test, measurement and control with rapid access to hardware and data insights. The LabVIEW programming environment simplifies hardware integration for engineering applications by providing a consistent way to acquire data from NI and third-party hardware.

Free Evaluation

XFdtd®

REMCOM

XFdtd® 3D EM Simulation Software provides engineers with powerful tools to shorten development time and release products to market sooner. A full-featured electromagnetic simulation solver, XF outpaces other methods in efficiency as the number of unknowns increases. XF includes full-wave, static, bio-thermal, optimization, and circuit solvers to tackle a wide variety of applications, including antenna design, microwave, mobile device, automotive radar, and more. It also works with Remcom’s ray-tracing products to provide thorough simulation capability at the low-, middle-, and high-end of the electromagnetic spectrum.

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